


Lean on Me, I'll Lean on You

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon-Typical Violence, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It’s still nice to know someone has his back.
Relationships: Seamus Finnigan/Neville Longbottom
Kudos: 5
Collections: Anonymous





	Lean on Me, I'll Lean on You

**Author's Note:**

> canon-typical violence/wounds, mentions of death eater propaganda

Neville is the first of them to get hit with a week of detention, before it’s even October. Carrow is practically rubbing her hands in glee about how filthy and dirty muggles are again, and it’s Seamus who snaps because there’s half an hour left in the period and if he can get sent out of the room he fucking well--better than having to listen to that nonsense, even if it comes with detention or extra homework. He opens his mouth to tell her that actually, no, muggles know how to take a fucking bath, but Neville says it first. Seamus half-appreciates it. Half, because he would have put up a better argument, and he can take care of himself, but it’s still nice to know someone has his back. 

“You’re insane,” Seamus says when they leave the classroom, and Neville shrugs.

“They won’t want to spill as much of my blood as yours.”

Do they really care about quote-unquote pure blood that much? God, Seamus hopes not. (And again, he tries not to think about his father, gone into hiding somewhere he can’t know because the more people know the more likely it is that the Death Eaters will somehow torture it out of some link in the chain.) 

The worry feeds back into the anger, and the anger feeds back into the worry, and Seamus really tries to pay attention through Transfiguration, but he absorbs very little of the lesson and if he hadn’t copied down what the homework assignment was he’d have had no idea what it was he was even supposed to learn. He’s headed to the library to try again before lunch when he hears a shriek and the sound of a shouted spell from around the corner. A terrified Hufflepuff who can’t be higher than third year is backing away from a slowly approaching Goyle.

“Don’t get in my way,” says Goyle, and he shoots another spell--Seamus barely steps in with a shield charm in time.

“Can’t bother to pick on someone your own size, eh, Goyle?”

He’s learned some nasty shit somewhere (probably the Carrows, or his Death Eater parents, not that it really matters) but he’s slow on the draw and Seamus had spent too much time in catching up to the rest of Dumbledore’s Army in fifth year to not be able to put up a strong shield charm in his sleep. If Dean were here--or even Harry or Ron--they’d be fighting with him, sending a hex or two or five Goyle’s way. The little Hufflepuff is still standing behind him, and it’s only a matter of time before Goyle gets a backup (and Seamus really doesn’t want to have to deal with Zabini or Parkinson). 

“Go on!” he tells the kid, a little too harshly, but it’s enough to unstick her feet from the floor and she scuttles off somewhere. Goyle shoots another couple of spells Seamus’s way, but a gaggle of younger Slytherins appears from around the corner. Seamus takes down the shield, shoots a body-bind curse at Goyle, and runs back, cutting through the Slytherins without bothering to check if the spell met its mark. No library for him, then; better to go back up to the dorms.

* * *

The common room is subdued that night, but it’s been subdued every night since the start of term. When last year it would have been full of students complaining about the workload, speculating about when the first Hogsmeade weekend or Quidditch match was going to happen, playing Exploding Snap or Gobstones, and trying to feed unsuspecting first-years a Canary Cream or Ton-Tongue Toffee, this year everyone’s either staring into space, speaking in a low murmur, or doing homework.

It’ll be their NEWT year (if they’re even allowed to sit, if they even make it that far--and that’s a dark thought Seamus refuses to say out loud, thanks very much) and the workload is bound to bog them down, but it’s so excessive already that Seamus doesn’t know where to begin. He’s missed one night of studying due to detention with the Carrows, and another night putting up graffiti with Neville, but not nearly as much as he’d missed this time last year practicing for Quidditch tryouts. 

“Padma says this much work is because they’re trying to keep us out of trouble,” says Parvati, sitting next to Seamus. “The younger kids are being hit hard too. If we’re busy doing homework we have a good excuse not to make trouble for the Carrows.”

Seamus snorts. “Yeah, and when we fall so far behind we won’t be able to pass, then what?”

Parvati shrugs. “I’ll do your divination homework if you let me have a look at your Transfiguration?”

“I haven’t started yet,” says Seamus. “I’ll give it to you tomorrow.”

At least he has a place to start now--get the Transfiguration done so he can let Parvati copy, let Parvati fill in his star chart for Divination and that will be done, then move on to whatever’s due next. On the other side of him, Neville checks his watch and closes his Charms textbook.

“I’m off.”

Seamus is about to ask where he’s going at quarter to nine before he remembers Muggle Studies that morning, and Neville’s detention (and the footlong essay they’ve all been assigned about muggle incompetence, which he’s not going to do, but just thinking about stirs up something unpleasant in his stomach all over again). 

“I’ll wait up for you,” Seamus says.

“You don’t have to. We all know the drill,” says Neville.

“You could just not go,” says Parvati, hopefully.

“And what, have them come up here to the common room and hex all of us? Give me another five weeks?”

Neville does have a point. He disappears up the stairs to the boys’ dorms, and then comes back without his bag. 

“Wish me luck?”

It’s a terrible attempt at levity. Seamus wishes him luck anyway.  


* * *

The worst of the Carrow detentions they’ve faced, all one-offs, have lasted two hours at most. By the time half past eleven rolls around, almost everyone is up in their rooms. Parvati is pretending to read  _ Advanced Potion-Making _ , but she hasn’t turned the page in fifteen minutes and her eyes are fixed on the carpet. Demelza Robins is attempting to nonverbally transfigure a goblet she’d nicked from dinner into something, Seamus can’t tell what. He’s still got a few more lines to add to his Transfiguration essay--he can see McGonagall’s disapproving comments in the margins now, about rephrasing himself unnecessarily instead of making a firm, coherent point (but really, he’d consider any point at all to be impressive considering his lack of focus during class). He just wants it to be over and done with, but he’s got nothing else to do until Neville comes back, and even though he’s checked his watch ten times the last five minutes he looks at it again and sighs. Parvati doesn’t even react to the sound.

“Go to bed,” Seamus says.

“Neville’s not back yet,” says Parvati. 

She rubs her eyes, and a yawn escapes that she doesn’t bother to hide. Demelza looks over from her goblet and catches the yawn. Seamus himself is too wired to think about falling asleep. He cracks his knuckles, and Parvati wrinkles her nose.

“I’ll take care of him,” Seamus says. “Promise. I’ll get McGonagall if--if it’s really bad.”

Parvati narrows her eyes and yawns again. Demelza’s packing up her stuff across the room. 

“I’ll get you if I need you. And I can’t sleep anyway.”

Parvati sighs, but she begins to put her things in her bag. Seamus looks back at his Transfiguration essay. Even if he just rephrases the same sentence and adds a couple of extra adjectives, it’ll be complete and the sentences will be grammatically correct. He can’t say he hasn’t done worse than that before.

Halfway through the last sentence, the portrait hole opens and Seamus drops his quill. Neville is standing--leaning, really, one hand on the wall, a sizeable gash on his chin and blood on his robes.

Seamus swears. 

“That bad, huh?”

“What did they do to you?”

“Tried to make me perform the Cruciatus on a first-year. Told them I wouldn’t do it, they said they’d torture me too and I said that at least I could stand up for myself.”

Seamus sucks in all his breath. Torturing students isn’t new, but making older students perform the Unforgivables on the younger ones is a new low. And it’s still September, and Neville has four more days of detention, and they’re all going to get even more detention, and--Christ.

“What happened to the first-year?”

Neville grimaces. “The Carrows tortured him themselves a bit, though they mostly talked about blood supremacy nonsense and they didn’t use any Unforgivables. I took him back to his common room. That’s why I’m so late. Had to get back from Ravenclaw Tower.”

“What about the Hospital Wing?”

“They told us Madame Pomfrey wasn’t authorized to deal with minor injuries, and they’d find out if we went. Didn’t want her to get in trouble too.”

Seamus gives a low whistle. Neville attempts to stand on his feet but he’s swaying; Seamus rushes over and Neville leans on him, his full weight almost making Seamus take a step back.

“Can you make it up the stairs?”

“Yeah.”

They make it halfway up to the landing before Neville stumbles, clutches onto Seamus, and nearly falls down and takes Seamus with him. Seamus grabs onto Neville tighter, and Neville does not stumble back; they stand there, holding onto each other and breathing hard. Seamus has been trying not to look at the cut on Neville’s face; up close it looks worse, like it might start bleeding again any minute. He wants to hug Neville closer so he doesn’t have to see it, and also because Neville probably needs it. And because it’s Seamus’s fault that Neville got this detention in the first place (though, maybe he would have said something anyway--but maybe he wouldn’t have, or maybe someone who hadn’t already marked themselves as a target for the Carrows would have and they would have gotten a lighter punishment). So he does.

“What, are you going to carry me the rest of the way?”

“Yeah,” says Seamus.

Neville’s a good bit taller than him, but Seamus can pick him up enough so that his feet clear the stair just above them, and moving about as slowly as before, get him up to their dorm. Neville doesn’t struggle or say that it’s ridiculous, which is as good of an indicator that he’s really hurt as any. Seamus’s bed is nearer to the door, so once they’re inside Seamus sets Neville down on it and goes to find the dittany they’ve kept and had to use too much this year (they’re running low already).

Neville closes his eyes and winces as Seamus applies the dittany to his face. As it begins to take effect, Seamus feels Neville’s leg and ankle through his pants. Nothing seems broken, though Neville hisses slightly. Just a little tender and bruised, hopefully nothing sprained. Neville stinks like sweat and blood; he needs a bath. That can wait until tomorrow, maybe; Seamus’s exhaustion has caught up with him and it looks like Neville’s has, too. The gash on his chin has healed over and scabbed nicely, and his breaths are evening out. Seamus kicks off his shoes and crawls into bed, pushing Neville onto the other side. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but he’d rather neither of them were alone. His last thought before sleep gets him is that they need to figure out how to see Madam Pomfrey without getting anyone in trouble with the Carrows or Snape--and then he rolls halfway over, almost forgetting Neville’s there before he finds his head on Neville’s chest and his arm draped across Neville’s torso. Neville’s hand clasps his, and then sleep comes.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to make it more shippy but it just wasn't going to happen. maybe next time!


End file.
